Well anyway, they got that pool to cross and how they’re gonna cross it is their headache. Maybe they won’t be able to cross it. Maybe they’ll be stymied and—

Or maybe they’re crossing it already.

You better take a look and check what they’re doing.

He lifted his head and peered through the gap. The moonlight cast a blue-white glow on them. They were assembled in a tight circle at the edge of the quagmire. Then the circle broke up and Corey frowned, puzzled. He counted them, focusing hard to make sure he was counting correctly. There were six.

First five and now six. He stated the fact to himself, narrowing his focus to exclude the five faces he’d seen before, his eyes slitted and straining, aiming like twin needles at the sixth man.

The sixth man was tall and had wide shoulders. The moonlight lacquered his curly black hair. His features were rugged, yet wholesome and pleasant, and he could have posed for an ad captioned, “He Takes Vitamins,” or smokes X brand of cigarettes. Or wears a certain type of elastic-waisted shorts. Or uses a certain cologne that lists him positively as a man of merit, a specimen of quality.

And that’s what she saw when she saw him for the first time, Corey reasoned. She saw them big fine shoulders and all that bulk packed in nice and solid, some two hundred pounds on a six-foot frame. So a female, any female, would naturally take a second look and what Lillian saw with that closer inspection was something she musta been hoping for or let’s say starved for. She musta caught the vibration that under all that muscle and power there was what they call the true blue, the clean thoughts and the honest striving and so forth. It musta come across to her that his pleasant smile and the wholesome look in his eyes were a hundred percent for real. And you can understand her buying that. Considering the run of available roosters in this neighborhood, or any neighborhood for that matter, all she hadda do was make a comparison and it hits her that this is it. This is the genuine merchandise.